In amongst the flood of details emerging about Windows 8 is the news that the IE 10 browser in the lightweight Metro front-end won’t support plugins. In the scheme of things this might sound pretty small beer, but it’s hugely significant for the long term future of Rich Internet Application (RIA) development and for the web in general.

Most immediately it’s another kick in the teeth for Flash, still reeling from Apple’s iOS ban. It’s not exactly a death blow, as the Windows 8 desktop version of IE will still support the player, but it’s clearly another major disincentive for developers who believed Flash was as universal as HTML.

Understandably all the focus has been on Flash, but even more telling and extraordinary is the realisation that the new no-plugin policy means that the Metro browser won’t even support Microsoft’s own cross-platform RIA technology, Silverlight!

So just what is going on?

Why has Microsoft changed course so dramatically, betraying its Silverlight vision and shafting its developers in the process?

Details on such a major announcement are disappointingly thin on the ground and largely based on an MSDN blog post (Metro style browsing and plug-in free HTML5). However the few reasons given to justify the decision such as they are – “the experience that plugins provide today is not a good match with Metro style browsing and the modern HTML5 web” – are very familiar. Essentially it’s the same argument Steve Jobs gave – “leaving the past behind” – when he outlawed plugins for iOS some 18 months ago. In short, it’s time for the web to move on from old-fashioned “legacy plugins”.

Regular readers will know that I have never bought this argument. More to the point, I know that Microsoft doesn’t either. After all, the company has spent the past five years arguing the exact opposite: namely that page-based HTML is great but that there are certain things that it just isn’t well suited to deliver: little things like high quality media streaming, digital rights management, interactive vector animations, device-based capabilities such as camera and microphone handling and, more generally, the richest possible, desktop-style web experience.

XAML & Silverlight

It’s precisely because Microsoft recognised the limitations of HTML – which remain true for HTML5/ CSS3/JavaScript/SVG – that the company has spent millions rethinking and entirely reworking its application development tools around XAML (eXtensible Application Markup Language). XAML is an open, XML-based markup language for building the user-facing front-end for both full-blown WPF-based desktop applications and, crucially, Silverlight-based lightweight RIAs ready for delivery via its own Flash-style cross-platform in-browser plugin.

So why has Microsoft changed course so dramatically, betraying its Silverlight vision and shafting its developers in the process?

Well of course Microsoft would say that it hasn’t. After all, the beautiful XAML-based technology lives on and thrives in Windows 8, it’s just that the end product won’t be delivered in the browser via Silverlight, but rather as standalone Metro apps. Moreover, with the promised Metro App Store, Microsoft is offering its developers a simple way to get their work out to users and to make real money from it based on the now well-established Apple model.

There’s a lot of truth to this and Metro is undoubtedly an exciting opportunity for XAML-based developers – but why not support Silverlight browser delivery too? How can Microsoft possibly argue that it can’t support its own existing lightweight Silverlight player within its own lightweight Metro front-end? In fact, if you really wanted to help Silverlight deliver on its potential, gain market share and reward your long-suffering developers, why not build Silverlight support into the Metro version of IE10 while relegating Flash to the desktop version?

It’s business – as usual

I think that the real answer to this question is also the real answer behind Steve Jobs’ decision to ban Flash: follow the money. Cross-platform, in-browser RIAs extending the universal browser to deliver rich and protected apps and content directly between producer and consumer aren’t a legacy problem to be solved; rather, they are a leading-edge, cloud-based threat to the platform-dependent empires that Microsoft and Apple have built up, and to the App Store and in-app content empires that they are currently building.

Keep the lid on the universal, browser-based user experience by killing off the in-browser RIA technologies and restricting the web to HTML5 and you get to deliver the full RIA experience outside the browser via your iOS and Metro apps, and via your platform-specific App Stores and in-app subscriptions. Not only is your all-important operating system and software ecosystem protected from third-party, cloud-based, cross-platform alternatives; you also get to take 30% of all paid-for app content, with no possibility of competition within your platform.

Look at it like this and Microsoft’s decision to effectively sacrifice its in-browser Silverlight vision makes absolute sense. The RIA vision behind Flash and Silverlight in which the web delivers on its full potential as a cross-platform, universal, open and truly rich connection direct between producer and consumer is a wonderful dream, but this is business.

But we’re not here to champion the champions, or lavish praise on the sensible: if you can’t wage bitter recriminations during the festive period, when can you? So, here we present the worst tech decisions of 2010.

RUNNING ANDROID ON TABLETS BEFORE IT’S READY

How best to combat the Apple iPad – a tablet interface that’s so breathtakingly simple that even the BBC’s pre-pubescent, twaddle-talking, F1 presenter Jake Humphrey can master it? The answer: shoe-horn an operating system designed exclusively for smartphones onto tablets and hope nobody notices the difference.

When even Google – the company that designed the operating system – admits Android really isn’t ready for tablets yet, you think people might take note. Yet, that didn’t stop companies such as Samsung, ViewSonic and, erm, clothes retailer Next from plunging in with devices that were just the wrong side of iffy (and in the case of the Next tablet, several counties the wrong side of iffy).

The most telling indictment of Android’s current unsuitability came when editor Tim Danton attempted to find just ten decent apps for our tablets buyer’s guide (on sale at all good newsagents now, folks), and spent the best part of a week swearing at the Android Marketplace, trying to find something other than Angry Birds to recommend.

THE CONVICTION OF PAUL CHAMBERS

Our friendly judicial system failed to see the funny side of a joke made on Twitter in 2010. Not once, but twice. Unfortunately for Paul Chambers, he was in the dock on both occasions.

After discovering his flight was cancelled because of January’s snow storms, the hapless Chambers tweeted: “Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your s*** together otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!”

Clearly alert to the fact that Al-Qaeda terrorists routinely announce their plans seven or so days in advance on social-networking sites, police subsequently swooped on Chambers’ house, confiscating his iPhone, laptop and desktop hard drive, and charging him with “sending  a message that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character”.

Incredibly, Doncaster Magistrates convicted Chambers under section 127 of the Public Communications Act in May, ordering him to pay more than £1,000 in fines and costs. Even more incredibly, an appeal judge upheld the conviction in November, arguing that “anyone living in this country in the present climate of terrorist threats, especially at airports, could not be unaware of the possible consequences [of their actions].”

The possible consequences for free speech and common sense are even more disturbing.

ICO’s ALL-CLEAR ON GOOGLE WI-FI SCANDAL

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) didn’t exactly cover itself in glory in 2010. When Google confessed that its Street View cars had been accidentally Hoovering up personal data from people’s Wi-Fi connections, the ICO sent a couple of crack investigators in to see what damage had been done. The upshot of their probe? No “meaningful” data had been collected. Rest easy, everybody.

Except a couple of months later, after investigations by other international privacy watchdogs, Google admitted that private emails and passwords were among the jumble of data gobbled up by its Street View cars, raising questions over the competence of the ICO’s initial investigation.

“The ICO seems more Keystone Cops than protector of our civil liberties,” said Conservative MP Robert Halfon, who uncovered a paucity of technical training among the ICO’s staff.

Meanwhile, an exclusive PC Pro investigation revealed the ICO was playing good cop, bad cop with Google: publicly upbraiding the search firm for a “a significant breach of the first principle of the Data Protection Act”, while privately sending chummy emails to Google’s staff bemoaning Halfon’s “misrepresentation” of its investigation.

What use is a watchdog that doesn’t bark, let alone bite?

THE PASSING OF THE DIGITAL ECONOMY BILL

Just ahead of the General Election, many tech-savvy Britons were wondering whether dictatorships were really that bad after all, after no fewer than 189 MPs lent their support to the draconian Digital Economy Bill.

Among the bill’s lowlights were the threat of disconnecting alleged file-sharers without court proceedings, and a clause that requires ISPs to block access to “”a location on the internet which the court is satisfied has been, is being or is likely to be used for or in connection with an activity that infringes copyright”.

The hastily constructed legislation was rushed through in the “wash-up” before the end of the Parliament, and was debated in an almost empty chamber by MPs who often didn’t have the first clue what they were talking about.

Labour MP Tom Watson, who voted against the Government for the first time, said the matter had left him feeling “physically sick”. He wasn’t the only one.

BOB MUGLIA’S SILVERLIGHT SPEECH

Even before Microsoft’s Bob Muglia took to the stage at October’s PDC, developers were nervous about Silverlight’s prospects. By the time he’d finished, they were positively terrified.

With Apple refusing to allow Silverlight apps onto the iPhone/iPad, and the growing support for HTML5, many felt Silverlight was already being squeezed out of the picture. So when the president of the server and tools division stood up and said, “Our Silverlight strategy and focus going forward has shifted,” developers began to fidget in their seats. “HTML is the only true cross-platform solution for everything, including [Apple’s] iOS platform,” he added, leaving the Silverlight developers crying into their free cappuccinos.

Muglia’s comments reverberated around the tech press and developer forums, with many asking whether Silverlight – which had only recently been chosen as the core development platform for Windows Phone 7 – had been sidelined?

Muglia subsequently posted a blog, admitting that his PDC speech had “caused controversy and confusion” before claiming that “Silverlight is very important and strategic to Microsoft”.

The damage may already have been done.

HP BUYING PALM

Several household names were in the frame when Palm put itself up for sale at the beginning of the year, but HP wasn’t among them. So what convinced HP to emerge from nowhere to pay a staggering $1.2 billion for a firm that was losing money hand over fist?

The Palm Pre was hyped an iPhone killer, but its “stuttering speeds, less-than-alluring hardware package, and occasionally confusing OS” failed to surpass the iPhone, according to our review. The succeeding Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus have done little to shake our conviction, either. Buyers are equally unimpressed: Palm’s webOS commands a mere 1.3% of its home US market, according to the latest figures from Nielsen. It doesn’t even figure in Gartner’s predictions for mobile devices OSes for 2014.

HP says it wants to put webOS in everything from tablets to web-connected printers, but we’ve yet to see a single product announcement (although that may change come CES in January). But starting from such a small a base, will HP be able to convince app developers that it’s worth their while developing for webOS? We very much doubt it.

THE BROWSER BALLOT

Yes, the EU imposed the browser ballot on Microsoft last year and it first started appearing on Windows desktops in October 2009, but the full consequences of the decision wouldn’t be felt until this year –  which is why we’ve included it here.

For those of you who’ve forgotten all about the browser ballot, let me begin… after a decade of making less progress than Bruce Forysth’s fringe, Opera suddenly decided it was Microsoft to blame for its appalling market share on the desktop, not the lack of killer features in its browser.

Somehow the EU bought Opera’s argument, and so ensued the ‘browser ballot’ – a little screen that offers Internet Explorer users a dozen previously unheard of delights such as Maxthon, Sleipnir and, of course, Opera. Most of which are pure gubbins, according to our reviews of the browser ballot contenders.

So, more than a year after the ballot was first introduced, has Opera been vindicated with a tidal wave of users deserting Internet Explorer in favour of the Scandinavian surfing sensation? Not exactly, no. According to Stat Counter Europe, Opera has seen its market share go from 4.05% in October 2009 (when the ballot was introduced) to… wait for it… 4.27% in November 2010. A staggering increase of 0.22%.

To be fair, Internet Explorer’s share has tumbled from 47.78% to 38.91%, but that’s largely due to the emergence of Google Chrome (3.99% in October 2009 to 13.09% in November 2010). And while Chrome is indeed in the browser ballot, we can’t help thinking Google’s massive marketing campaign and the quality of the browser are the real reasons for its success.

At its recent Professional Developer Conference Microsoft’s Bob Muglia signalled a major change of strategy for the company’s Silverlight technology. When first introduced Silverlight was intended to become a near universal cross-platform web runtime like Flash. Now Muglia revealed that Microsoft saw HTML5 as the future for universal in-browser development while Silverlight was being repositioned as a native application development platform for Windows Phone 7 devices. Unsurprisingly, most pundits saw this as an admission of defeat, with our own Jon Honeyball asking: “Silverlight RIP?”

Yesterday, just over a month later, Scott Guthrie announced the “Firestarter” launch of the new Silverlight 5 beta under the slogan “the future of Silverlight starts now”. So what’s going on?

Silverlight 5: What’s New

Silverlight 5 offers a whole host of major new features, with general highlights including support for GPU-based graphics and video handling, 64-bit support, a new web browser control for hosting HTML content, the ability to read and write to the user’s Documents folder, the ability to launch Office apps, reduced network latency and improved XAML parsing to boost performance, and a new class of trusted applications that will provide full desktop functionality within the browser.

For developers there are a number of additional advances including databinding and debugging enhancements and support for Model View, multiple window handling, Visual Studio profiling and Team Test. For designers the highlights include video improvements, smoother animation and greatly enhanced text handling with support for features such as tracking and leading, pixel snapping, multi-column layouts and text runaround promising “magazine-style handling”.

All in all it’s pretty impressive stuff, leveraging Microsoft’s Windows, Office and development strengths and taking web-based application delivery into places that HTML5 can only dream of. Moreover, while there isn’t an obvious immediate game-changer here, it’s clear that Microsoft isn’t exactly taking its foot off the pedal and is still pushing the cross-platform Silverlight runtime hard.

So what should we make of Microsoft’s mixed messages? In particular is Microsoft recommending HTML5 or Silverlight? Should Silverlight be used for cross-platform web development or native WP7 application development? And who’s in charge: Bob Muglia or Scott Guthrie?

I think the best way to understand what is going on is to think in terms of the near, middle and long term.

The war on the ground: handheld combat

Currently there’s no doubt that Apple is in the ascendant with the iPhone and iPad setting the standard for smartphone and tablet devices, and its native iOS applications conquering the planet. Moreover with his ban on the Flash and Silverlight runtimes, Steve Jobs has ensured that both Silverlight and Flash have lost their greatest asset: universality.

Unless that ban is dropped or users defect, Steve Jobs is effectively able to hold the all-important demographic of affluent early adopters hostage in his magical walled garden: the only open way to access them is via HTML(5) as indeed Microsoft has done with its Silverlight-free Office web apps.

Clearly Microsoft needs to become competitive in this handheld space that Apple has made its own and Windows Phone 7 is crucial to its plans. Making Silverlight the development platform for WP7 makes absolute sense in the near term, allowing the army of desktop Windows developers to take their skills to the mobile platform and begin making some money. Moreover, while Apple is holding back the potential of universal in-browser Rich Internet Applications, concentrating on native application development again makes sense: if you can’t beat him, copy him.

Thinking ahead: don’t forget the cloud

In the longer term however, the picture is likely to change completely. At the moment Apple is pretty much the only game in town and everyone is delighted with what their iOS native apps can deliver. Over the next few years devices are set to proliferate, not just WP7 devices but devices from RIM and Nokia and, even more significantly, from the wide range of Android and soon Chrome OEMs.

This will provide real competition for Apple but it will also mean that the advantages and economies of scale of cross-platform, in-browser development and delivery will again become obvious: better, cheaper, automatically up-to-date apps that aren’t tied to a particular device and are accessible to everyone from anywhere and everywhere.

Apple’s current dominance obscures the fact, but the future of computing still lies with universal rich internet applications in the browser (and content on the server), not with device-specific native applications. Apple can’t deliver to the world as a whole, but the cloud can and will. When this is recognised, the benefits of a native application platform that automatically extends to an in-browser runtime, and so to all supporting platforms and devices, will come into its own. And Apple’s closed approach, exemplified by its lack of a cross-platform runtime, will be exposed.

As things stand, Silverlight is certainly not delivering in the way that Microsoft or developers had hoped and expected. In particular its inability to make inroads against Flash in the browser and the emergence of Apple as the handheld superpower have left it caught in no-man’s land. And shooting yourself in the foot as Bob Muglia did at PDC certainly doesn’t help.

However talk of the demise of Silverlight is premature. Yes things are happening quickly, but the war for the web isn’t going to be won in a day. In particular while there is huge excitement among early adopters for the potential of the handheld space and in particular for Apple’s brilliant devices, they still make up only a tiny fraction of the market.

By the time that every user is looking to buy a smartphone and tablet (and early adopters their next smartphone and tablet), the situation will be very different. General understanding of the benefits of cloud-based delivery (online and offline) will have matured and the next generation of open, handheld devices optimised for both Silverlight and AIR will be able to deliver.

When these foundations are in place, users will be looking for an integrated approach to computing that spans their smartphone, tablet and set-top box. Crucially, they will also want to integrate their desktop (Windows) and their main applications (Office and other WPF-based applications). Thanks to its work on HTML5, WPF and especially Silverlight, Microsoft and its army of desktop developers will be well set to deliver.

Rather than an admission of defeat or forced retreat, Silverlight’s current shift towards WP7 native development should be seen as strategic repositioning and the opening up of a second front. Eventually though, as Silverlight 5 demonstrates, Microsoft is still betting that the war will be won in the air.

To the intense annoyance of both firms, it appears Apple is holding sway here with its insistence that neither Silverlight nor Flash will be allowed on the iOS platform used in the iPhone and iPad. And that, in its opinion, HTML5 is the future.

Well, there is no doubt that HTML5 is the future, in that the current HTML5 implementation leaves much to be desired and it will take time and work for this to be fleshed out. But Apple says no, use native code on iOS or use HTML5.

This is a real problem for Microsoft. On the one hand, it looks forward to the HTML5 future, and the new build of IE9 shows that Microsoft is absolutely determined to be an HTML5 leader. It’s certain that it’s not going to be lagging behind as it was on previous browser versions. And its claimed adherence to the standards means that there will be less, hopefully none of the custom IE stuff we have seen in the past.

For Microsoft, Silverlight is a real problem. It has developed what is a strong development platform and runtime, and it has gone from nothing to this robust platform in just a few years. However, there is a point of view that Microsoft is up to its old tricks already – the support for COM objects on the Windows version means that the Mac version is not in sync.

And where is the real Linux version we were hoping to see? Given the HTML5 future, you might think that Silverlight is being sidelined, and maybe it is. But it’s the core development tool for the new Windows Phone 7 platform. So is it on life support, being retargeted at WP7 and away from the desktop? Microsoft won’t say other than Bob Muglia’s comment to Mary-Jo Foley that its “strategy has changed”.

If I was trying to build a rich internet application today, then the confusion surrounding Flash, Silverlight and the future HTML5 would be enough to make me tear my hair out. Maybe we need to accept that code is truly a “use, consume and dispose” item and that there is no long-term future to most anything. Build what works for today, but make sure you don’t align yourself with just one platform.

Now this is interesting. The New York Times has just reported talks between Microsoft and Adobe and possible discussions of a takeover. There’s certainly an apparent logic at work. The PC Pro news story quotes analyst Toan Tran saying “It may be a case of ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ and both Microsoft and Adobe have a common enemy in Apple.” With both companies suffering under the current Apple surge, perhaps such consolidation makes sense.

On the other hand there are lot of arguments against.

Perhaps the biggest is that Microsoft thought long and hard about buying Macromedia to get its hands on Flash and decided against, largely because it thought it could do better. The result was Microsoft’s huge investment in XAML/Expression which ties in its current Windows and .NET strongholds via WPF, with the cross-platform browser-based future that is Silverlight. As the developer of the only realistic competitor to Flash, the idea that Microsoft can simply jump ship is clearly simplistic.

I also think that neither company would actually see its current position as hopeless – or even weak. Apple has certainly caught both companies off guard and seized the initiative, but both are readying their response. In Microsoft’s case this takes the form of its “iPhone-killer” Windows Phone 7 for which Silverlight is the application development platform. For Adobe, its new mobile-optimised 10.1 player is key and with every major device manufacturer except Apple signed up to supporting it , Flash looks set to be as big a presence in the handheld space as it is on the desktop.

I would argue that Apple’s apparently impregnable walled kingdom (actually only 1.1% of the total web market) is about to come under serious attack on two fronts and on all sides. While Microsoft and Adobe certainly have things to talk about (for example the promised 10.1 player for Windows Phone 7), the idea that they need to throw their lot in together is wrong.

More importantly it would be an anti-competitive disaster, putting Microsoft in charge of the two currently competing player-based solutions on which the future of rich cloud-based computing depends. My biggest fear would be that, rather than jumping ship to Flash, Microsoft would sign up to Steve Jobs’ narrative that Flash is yesterday’s technology and that the future belongs to WPF/Silverlight alone. The takeover could in fact be hostile.

If the possible takeover is neither necessary nor desirable does that mean it won’t happen? I certainly hope it’s just a misguided rumour and, if not, that competition laws would prevent it. However it’s clear that the ‘we-need-to-consolidate-to-compete-with-Apple’ story might play. And it’s also clear that this could be very much in Microsoft’s financial and strategic interests.

However the real benefit to Microsoft wouldn’t be in its fight with Apple (happy to cream off just the richest users and to ignore the browser-based cloud in favour of its closely controlled iOS apps) but with the far bigger threat posed by Google. Ultimately Google’s universal, browser-based vision of the future of computing (and so the end of Windows’ hegemony) depends on rich internet applications (RIA) and so largely on Flash (hence Google’s support of the format, building the player directly into Chrome and so on). If Microsoft owned both RIA technologies it would effectively own the future of rich cloud-based computing, and so the fate of Google’s competing vision would lie in its hands.

In the interests of fair competition and the future of the web, I certainly hope that if anyone is going to buy Adobe and Flash, it’s not Microsoft but Google.

In many ways, the newcomer to programming who’s aiming at web or mobile development has a much better time of it today. This is because whilst there are many, many languages to choose from, they have much more in common than languages of the past. Learn ActionScript, for example, and you’re half way there with C#, PHP and JavaScript, as their basic constructs are identical.

But the real value you, as a web developer, can bring to a project is specialist skill. Whilst every good PHP developer understands the basics of C#, no web project can be completed without in-depth knowledge, and this takes time and lots and lots of practice to develop. It’s a huge investment so the choice of which language to specialise in is also critical, at least in the short- to medium-term.

If you’re aiming to develop your own web applications, you can choose whichever language flies your kite. I develop in PHP, JavaScript/jQuery and Flex/Flash Builder because I like them. PHP is my absolute favourite, and I tend to use that alongside jQuery unless I need the super-rich application features that only Flex/Flash can deliver. My brother, on the other hand, is a massive fan of C# and either language is perfectly capable of creating sophisticated web applications.

If you want to hire yourself out you need to make a more pragmatic choice about which development tool to specialise in and one way to do this is to look at the demand for each. According to the TIOBE Programming Community Index for April 2010, the venerable trinity of C, Java and C++ are the most widely used and requested programming languages. This is mainly because of the huge quantity of legacy code that needs to be managed within large corporations. PHP is the top web scripting language with C# around half of PHP’s level and Python and Perl next. Objective-C, the language used for creating iPhone applications, still only accounts for a tiny fraction of the programming market but is massively on the rise.

So, for web development, PHP is the most popular language (note, I did not say “best”). That’s all very well but I rather suspect that there are more programmers working in PHP than any other development language, which means the competition is huge. We need to know the ratio between popularity and competition.

I went to freelance recruitment site Guru.com and, for each language, found out the number of projects posted for each of the common web and mobile platform development languages. I then noted how many freelancers/companies offered each language. By dividing one into the other, we end up with a rough idea of how competitive the market for expertise in each language is. For example, when I checked there were 151 PHP projects on Guru and 7,769 providers. This means that there are 51.45 providers for each job.

Here’s the full list:

What leaps out immediately is that the competition ratio for mobile development is much lower than for web development, and within that Android development is almost twice as attractive a market as iPhone development.

Looking at the web development languages, it looks as though Flash, Python and Ruby development are markets that are saturated with developers chasing relatively few projects. PHP and ASP (which includes ASP and ASPX) are neck-and-neck but the head and shoulders winners are Flex and Silverlight. Whilst there are relatively few projects, there are also few developers.

So which should you choose? Looking at these ratios, it seems to me that choosing either PHP or ASP development with Visual Studio for creating standard web applications is a good initial approach. PHP has the advantage of being free to install and develop for (there are plenty of free IDEs) whereas skills developed in C#, for example, are also transferrable into desktop development. The other benefit of developing in the Visual Studio environment is that adding Flash-like functionality is simply a matter of extending your existing C# skills so that they use the Silverlight player.

From the purely commercial point of view (and if you assume that Silverlight will, eventually, succeed as a technology in becoming as ubiquitous as Flash Player) the Visual Studio approach has a lot going for it: C# becomes a single language that can be used on the desktop, for creating standard .aspx web applications and for developing Silverlight applications.

For me, however, PHP is unbeatable when it comes to productivity, and Flash Player is way ahead in terms of browser installations so, at least for now, I’ll be sticking to this combination. My advice to a newcomer to programming, however, would probably be to download Visual Studio 2010 Express and try C# for size – it may well, finally, be the future Microsoft always intended it to be.

On the other hand, with the forthcoming release of Adobe Air for Android and the low competition level for Android development, Flex has suddenly become a very credible development environment for that platform. You pays your money…

With its place at the heart of the Microsoft Office suite, PowerPoint is the overwhelmingly dominant presentation software for business. However it has a fundamental flaw – it still doesn’t offer an in-built route for efficient, cross-platform, screen-based web delivery. For a program whose whole purpose is to help users get their message over, this is quite astonishing and unforgivable as we approach 2010.

Microsoft might not provide its own solution but there are plenty of third-party applications which fill the gap such as Adobe’s Captivate and Presenter, the bargain Flair from WildFX and my personal favourite Articulate Presenter. The major embarrassment for Microsoft is that these all rely on the Adobe Flash format.

It’s an embarrassment that is made considerably worse by the fact that Microsoft is currently busily touting its own cross-platform web format, Silverlight, as a direct alternative to Flash. It’s clear that PowerPoint and Silverlight should make a perfect match and native Silverlight export would certainly go a long way to explaining (if not excusing) PowerPoint’s lack of support for Flash.

So where is the ability to convert PowerPoint to Silverlight?

I expected Silverlight export to form the central highlight of the new PowerPoint 2010, but bizarrely in the details it has released Microsoft makes no mention of it. Take a look at the PowerPoint 2010 video at Channel 10 and the PowerPoint 2010 video at Microsoft Showcase and you’ll see that the main focus seems to be on new transitions and effects and remote screen-to-screen broadcasting (you’ll also see that the first Channel 10 comment is from a user asking about Silverlight export).

This is getting actively suspicious. With its first release we were told that Silverlight’s major selling-point was its multimedia capabilities. That was over two years ago so what is the problem? If Silverlight 3.0 can’t efficiently deliver PowerPoint presentations, it’s fair to ask what can it do? More to the point, if Silverlight can’t do the job, Microsoft has an obligation to its users to provide native Flash export. As we approach 2010, efficient online delivery isn’t a niche requirement, it’s absolutely central to PowerPoint’s mission to communicate.

Things might not be as bad as they look. Recently I received a press release from Electric Rain announcing the launch of Convexion, an add-on for converting PowerPoint 2007 presentations to Silverlight. I haven’t been able to try it myself yet but it’s clear that, with Convexion, Silverlight-based online (and offline) delivery of presentations is indeed possible as well as WPF-based desktop delivery. Even better, when I visited the website today I saw that Microsoft has licensed the technology.

It looks as if Microsoft is going to provide PowerPoint to Silverlight capabilities in some format then – but I’m still left baffled and concerned.

To begin with, I can’t see why Microsoft should be relying on a third-party for such a core technology. Online delivery isn’t just crucial for PowerPoint, it’s even more important for Silverlight. At the moment Microsoft’s main requirement with Silverlight is to close the gap on Flash regarding player penetration (around 97% for Flash to around 33% for Silverlight according to today’s figures at riastats.com). What better way could Microsoft drive Silverlight take-up than by enabling the millions of PowerPoint users to open up their presentations to anyone with an internet connection? I really can’t believe that Microsoft has somehow failed to spot this massive opportunity.

There’s another concern. On the Electric Rain site it provides an example of a Ray Ozzie presentation converted to Silverlight. It’s fine as a proof of principle of online Silverlight delivery but there’s a fundamental problem. The size of the native PPT is under 900K and the size of the XAP is over 4MB! And that’s without any videos or photos.

I sincerely hope that this is a problem with Convexion rather than Silverlight. It certainly could be as plenty of the first PowerPoint to Flash converters wastefully rasterized slides rather than recreating them as web-efficient vectors. However it’s hardly reassuring.

PowerPoint should be the perfect partner for Microsoft to demonstrate Silverlight’s strengths; currently it’s only exposing the weaknesses of both.

For example in a comparison between the barebones HTML-based Google Docs and the slick Flash-based Acrobat.com, I’d reserve the term RIA (rich internet application) for the latter and dismiss the former as a mere “web application” (more importantly I know which one I’d prefer to use).

Recently though I have to admit that Google caused my jaw to drop… and made me question the distinction.

Like most people I’ve become so used to Google Maps that I now take its extraordinary power for granted. I was forcefully reminded of just how amazing it is however, when I recently went to print out some directions. For the first time I noticed and clicked on the options in the print preview header to show maps and street views for each individual step (see example).

The latter capability in particular is extraordinary (assuming the area that you are interested in is covered by Street View). Being able to almost-instantaneously load in views of each junction that you are going to come across on your journey is breathtaking – especially as each street view is live and explorable (though thankfully that’s not generally necessary as Google automatically orientates the view based on the direction you’re travelling)

It certainly gave me pause for thought. If an application can cause you to say “oh that’s good, that’s really good” out loud, then surely it deserves to be called “rich”? In fact, if Google Maps isn’t a “rich internet application” then what on earth is?

It’s certainly a useful reminder of just how powerful the browser can be as a platform, but ultimately I think it’s worth preserving the distinction and reserving “RIA” for player-based applications (ie Flash / Silverlight). This isn’t just on practical grounds so that we know what we’re talking about. Google is clearly committed to making the browser as rich an environment as it can, but that’s rich in terms of content and functionality not in terms of design.

Indeed Google clearly prides itself on its cut-down, almost anti-design approach. This minimalist “anti-Flash” design works well for Google’s core applications such as Search and Maps where Google’s job is to help you get where you want to go as quickly as possible (indeed you could make the case that the street map mini-views are a flashy falling away from this principle).  However for those applications – the majority – where you have to spend time consuming or producing content, this barebones approach backfires as it does with Google Docs.

Clearly content and functionality are crucial to the success of any project but ultimately I’d argue that the “rich” in RIA refers to design and that the distinguishing strength of a player-based approach is that it can offer a richer, tighter, more desktop-like user experience than the browser alone. The browser-based Google Maps is brilliant, but a player-based version could be better still.

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PS. A quick practical postscript for web designers: Google recently introduced the ability to add Google Map directions to your own sites . The Directions gadget doesn’t offer street map views (currently), but it’s a seriously useful option to add to your How To Find Us pages. And it’s a great way to get your clients’ jaws dropping with a single line of code.

PPS. A quick impractical postscript: In spite of the directions and street views, I still managed to get hopelessly lost. Google Maps might be brilliant but it’s no replacement for Sat Nav.

No, I think there is another reason, but this is pure speculation. I think Microsoft is actually walking away from Internet Explorer because it knows the battle is going to move elsewhere. It’s a kind of inversion, but the logic goes like this.

HTML has never worked, and attempts to make it better will just wrestle any remaining control away from Microsoft. Other browsers are taking up market share, so it’s time to redefine the question. Up till now Silverlight has been a plug-in to the browser, and the latest version allows you to run a Silverlight application as standalone desktop application. Adobe has a similar platform with Flash.

Now wouldn’t it be a neat move to make a plug-in for Silverlight which renders HTML to Silverlight? This way, Silverlight becomes the “browser” and the HTML renderer is separately pluggable and upgradable. Microsoft is in fear that Adobe will do just this with Flash – and suddenly the browser has become platform independent.

It is not in Microsoft’s nature to walk away from a battle unless it has an alternative solution lined up. Silverlight as HTML renderer might just be the weapon it has chosen.

When Microsoft announced it was launching an iPlayer rival I could barely hear the words over the onrushing sound of catastrophic failure. If you listen closely, you can hear it too…. Huuuluuu, Huuuluuu, Hulu.

Having used Hulu, I can testify that it’s brilliant and now its flame-filled eyes of domination are on the UK. If the whispers are true it’ll stride into the UK next month, laughing maniacally and kicking its competitors in the crotch, I’d imagine. It’s going to be a bloodbath and if I were Microsoft I’d take Windows 7 and Office 2010 and hunker down in my fortress made of £100 notes. Instead it’s tying itself to the tracks. Unfortunately, stubbornness has never derailed a freight train.

So, that’s that. What really baffles me about MSN Video Player (yes, beyond its very existence) is that Microsoft’s chosen to roll it out on Flash. That’s Adobe’s Flash. That’s Adobe, the next-door-neighbour with the bigger garden, prettier wife and stranglehold on the internet. Microsoft’s been trying to unseat Flash with Silverlight for the last couple of years, ushering developers towards the platform with big smiles and over-elaborate tech demos. And now, confronted by one of its biggest web rollouts for years, it expresses its confidence in Silverlight by sidling into its rivals garden and groping his wife.

I was so perturbed by this I rang up the Microsoft press office and asked why they’d decided not to launch on Silverlight. After some scurrying around, somebody clearly cracked open the can of random PR excuses and pulled forth the following cracker:

We are launching MSN Video Player in pilot form and it is based on existing technology… We are very impressed by Silverlight’s capability and look forward to extending the way it is used to enhance the MSN Video Player experience in the medium term.

Disregarding the fact that it never gets anywhere near answering the question, can somebody explain how Silverlight is not an “existing technology”. And if it’s not, then what is it? Tomorrow’s technology, yesterday’s technology, a week last Thursday’s technology?

There’s also something slightly off about claiming “we are very impressed by Silverlight’s capability” and “extending the way it is used” and “medium term”. Reading it again, it’s almost as if the entire sentence was assembled from stock phrases found on Microsoft’s giant wall of generalisations.

And I couldn’t slink off without leaving you with the following nugget further down in the statement.

MSN Video Player is launching as a pilot to allow it to evolve throughout the pilot period to reflect user requirements within the UK.

What…?